Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin Loses Kolathur Seat to VS Babu

CHENNAI: CM Stalin lost his Kolathur seat to TVK’s VS Babu by a margin of 9,121 votes. With the defeat, MK Stalin becomes the third sitting Chief Minister to lose in his own constituency in the State. M Bhaktavatsalam was swept away from Sriperumbudur by the historic DMK wave that ended the Congress rule in the State. In 1996, J Jayalalithaa lost in Bargur as voters delivered a crushing verdict, reducing the AIADMK to merely four seats in the State following major public backlash and corruption allegations, followed by the extravagant wedding organised for her foster son, VN Sudhakaran, in 1995. M K Stalin, on the other hand, has contested from Kolathur since the constituency was carved out in 2011. He had won here three consecutive times, each time by a larger margin, culminating in a 70,000-vote landslide in 2021. The first time, he won it by a whisker of 2,734 votes against AIADMK's Saidai Duraisamy. Before the constituency was formed through delimitation, he contested in 1989, 1996 and 2001 from the Thousand Lights constituency. He made his electoral debut in the Thousand Lights constituency in 1984 and lost. He was elected from there in 1989, 1996 and 2001. However, he lost in 1991. Interestingly, in 2006, when Stalin contested from Thousand Lights, VS Babu, the TVK’s candidate, who has now managed to take him down with the weight of Vijay’s brand, contested on the same DMK ticket in neighbouring Purasaiwalkam and won.